


Who Bakes For The Baker?

by LaBelleIzzy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Baking, Birthday Cake, Future Fic, Gen, Podfic Welcome, PolyFrogs, Stress Baking, background m/m/m, based on real life college experience, hockey bros, samwell men's hockey, sometimes they play hockey, transformative arts welcome, we got your back Bittle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:26:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7423621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleIzzy/pseuds/LaBelleIzzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chowder scratched his head. He's heard "who watches the watchmen" and all the variations that silly drunken frat boys might come up with, but what comes out of his mouth that night is "who bakes for the baker?"<br/>And he and Nursey and Dex all look at each other, appalled. Instantly, they get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which the Frogs are not categorically horrible human beings, just a bit thoughtless.

Chris is playing video games with Dex and Nursey on the Comfy Green Couch of Awesomeness late that night because all three of them are avoiding that last bit of studying for semester finals. 

"Who Watches the Watchmen?" grumbles Dex. "Who even says that?"

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Nursey corrects him, with an absent air, focused on the tv and the controller. "Who watches the watchers, technically..." 

Dex snorts sarcastically.

Chris didn't know people COULD snort sarcastically before meeting Will Poindexter.

"It's classic! Roman, actually," Nursey murmurs. "Quite possibly the first instance of recorded meta in the history of human language!"

Chris didn't actually know exactly what Nursey meant, but he could certainly tell from the tone of voice that he was starting to needle Dex and that, well it was going to get in the way of this, this by the way VERY necessary, collaboration in procrastination.

Well, pre-emptive distraction it is, then.

"Hey Nursey," Chris hears himself say, executing a difficult and showy maneuver in the game, "Do you think that works for other professions?"

Chris can hear the frown in Dex's voice as he answers: "What do you mean, Chow?"

Nursey adds, "What... you mean, like other instances of meta, for other professions?"

Chris gives it half a thought and frowns. "Like, huh. Maybe like, busman's holiday. Or the cobbler's children go barefoot. Sayings like that." He climbs mentally back into the game after sharing those, slamming into Dex and Nursey's avatars as he collects the prize.

Dex smirks, "Who programs the programmers?"  
Nursey volleys, "Who butchers the butchers!" and grins like a giant fool.  
Dex: "Who brews for the brewers?"  
Nursey: "Who spies on the spy?"

They're all laughing lightheartedly and throwing ideas around until Chris absent-mindedly comes up with "Who bakes for the bakers?"

He hears the silence of the other two and feels their gazes on him before he pauses the game and says, "What? What'd I say?"

He mentally rewinds the last bit of conversation and abashedly says, "ohhhh. Bitty. BITTY."

Nursey nods solemnly. "Bitty's a senior this year."  
Dex: "He feeds us. He's our captain. He's going to graduate in spring."  
Chris: "Have any of us EVER cooked for him before?"

The three of them strain themselves trying to remember. "We've taken him out to eat, a bunch of times," Nursey says thoughtfully, "but I can't remember ANYONE ever cooking for Bitty."

Dex's elbows are in the air. His hands are pulling on the hair at the crown of his head, and the line between his eyebrows getting deeper. "How have we never, not ONCE, thought about cooking for Bitty?"

"Oh, Nooooooo, we're horrible ungrateful Frogs!" Chris is starting to feel awful. He's covering his face with his hands and he feels like he might actually cry. His heart HURTS.  
"Bitty does SO MUCH for us! He feeds us, and he keeps the Haus from being horrible gross and dirty, he's our team captain... he's so hella sw'awesome, oh gosh you guys, we totally don't deserve him!"

Chris feels Nursey slide closer and hip-check him on the couch, right at the same time Dex puts an arm around his shoulders, and that does make his eyes overflow. "Hey, Chow, Chowder, it's okay." Dex rubs the heel of his hand over the big muscles of Chris's shoulders, and the massaging feel of it is warm and comforting. "We're not horrible... We're NOT. And Bitty loves us, we know he does."

Chris can feel Nursey nodding where he's put his head on Chris's shoulder. "He does, Chris, he DOES love us. Look at how he takes care of us even with the C, and Jack, and graduating next semester. We've just been clueless thoughtless jocks for awhile here, but we have time to make this better."

Wiping the heels of his hands over his eyes, Chris sniffles up a little, coughs and straightens up. "Thanks guys. I'm still sad that we never thought of this before now, but I'm glad we're going to make a plan to do better. Yeah?" He tugs on each of them till they both lean in on him and they all gently bonk their foreheads together in comfort, the same way they did a million years ago even before they all first realized they were dating. "Okay. Okay, good."

Nursey is the first to straighten up and grab a controller. "Gentlemen, the problem has been identified. Let us table the meeting for the night while I kick your asses here, and we can start making plans tomorrow. Agreed?"  
Dex and Chowder laugh while untangling their arms and grabbing for their own controllers. 

"As if you could kick my ass at this, Nursey!"

"Bring it, Nurse!"


	2. In which a sneaky plan probably could, in retrospect, have been sneakier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Frogs plan a surprise for Bitty.

Dex and Chowder and Nursey sit down with their calendars the following morning after coffee, as promised.

The Frogs decide on making dinner and a birthday cake for Bitty and for the rest of the Team. Deciding on the dinner menu is relatively easy: "lots of protein, lots of carbs," becomes a giant pasta dinner with tomato sauce, grilled sausages and vegetables. And a CAKE. Bitty’s birthday is May 5, more than a week before graduation, and almost five months after they realize that they need to Do Better By Bitty.

“Not on his ACTUAL birthday, guys. I expect Jack’s going to have PLANS for him.”  
Nursey waggles his eyebrows at the other two. Dex groans and socks Nursey in the arm while Chris smiles a tiny wicked grin to himself. They decide that the last weekend in April should work well for the surprise party. It doesn’t coincide with Easter and it’s two weeks after the Spring Break.

Dex starts to beta test dessert and cake recipes on his family and siblings over spring break. He practices cinnamon pecan rolls with bits of orange zest, raspberry swirl cheesecake, peanut butter chocolate chip oatmeal maple cookies, jam thumbprint cookies. He perfects his grandmother’s rhubarb and strawberry tarts. He makes SO MANY date squares and lemon bars and chocolate praline shortbread. Dex's family house becomes a favorite place to visit for all the kids in the neighborhood, because he’s always giving away the extras from his recipes.

Dex brings samples of everything he’s been working on back to the Haus to share with Nurse and Chow, but doesn’t realize that… someone might take it the wrong way…

At some point Bitty walks in on a kitchen full of Poindexter baked goods.  
"Dex! You’ve been baking without me? Should I be jealous?" 

(Bitty’s mock hurt hides some actual hurt.)  
Dex soothes over the situation by starting off with, "yeah, Bitty, I have been baking. I'm getting to love it... (shyly) but there's one or two things that I just can't figure out how to make it come out right, can I ask you...?"

And Bitty is mollified.  
(Dex did actually know how to do most of those things, but he legit did have some questions, and it was a great conversation.)

Dex does all the actual cooking for the dinner. Nursey buys the good chocolate and good quality ingredients for dinner and the cake. Chowder’s contribution involves distracting Bitty long enough that they can set up dinner and hide dessert. Because nobody believes he can lie. He can misdirect like a *master*, but ask him directly and he can’t lie.

****  
Everyone is gathered in the Haus livingroom, shenanigans as usual, video games and chirping, when Chowder distracts Bitty out of the kitchen. Caitlin hides the double-chocolate chocolate whipped cream frosted, ugly-but-delicious cake that the boys taught themselves how to make for Bitty. (There was extensive taste testing on early batches till the recipe turned out delicious... What? They’re growing boys!)

Chowder brings Bitty back to be surprised a few minutes after Nursey's text buzzes in his pocket.

The surprise goes well.  
(Guess Bitty wasn't expecting ANOTHER surprise birthday even, after last year... The Frogs congratulate each other quietly.)

After the surprise and dinner, Bitty’s sat on Jack’s lap, happy and content. Everyone else is cuddled up in puppy piles, and chilling to music. But Rans and Holtzy have water pistols for some ungodly reason and have been surreptitiously squirting one another and other people in the room when no one else is looking, speaking of surprises! It devolves pretty fast into a full blown water fight, including running up the stairs (bedrooms off limits but bathrooms and kitchen get soaked.) 

Somehow Bitty and Jack hide out of the way, (IN THE CLOSET?) giggling as they listen to all their friends running and cursing as they get soaked and ambush each other.

Things are dying down a little when Bitty and Jack finally come out from hiding.

“Well, y’all that was fun! And I’m kind of tickled that I didn’t actually get wet… wait...”  
He realizes it’s the wrong thing to say as it’s actually leaving his mouth, and then his feet leave the ground, and he’s being gently carried by several ridiculously large hockey players towards the sink. 

He knows better than to fight them after all this time, but he keeps up a mock grumpy monologue.

Chris runs the water a little while to make sure the water’s warm, it’s a chilly night for late April. Dex and Nursey bring Bitty’s head and shoulders over the sink, Holster and Ransom have Bitty’s legs and feet. 

The moment has a curious ceremony to it: gentle and loving in spite of (or perhaps because of) the chirps and good natured insults flying around the kitchen.

Jack, Lardo and Shitty watch the proceedings with Farmer from the kitchen doorway, smirking. A few tadpoles are still in the living room, running around shooting each other with Ransom and Holster’s water pistols.

“Happy Birthday, Bitty!” says Chowder with an enormous grin as he pours the (clean!) spaghetti pan full of warm water over the top of Bitty’s head. 

Bitty splutters and flails. Flips his now soaking wet hair back out of his eyes. Dex and Nursey grin at each other and ruffle Bitty’s mop head before everyone finally lets him back down to the floor.  
Bitty shakes his hair like a dog, flinging droplets all over the kitchen and his friends. His bangs sag, limp without the help of his usual hair product, a much darker blonde than usual with all the water.

“Betrayal! That’s what it is! My Frogs have betrayed me, how dare y’all do this to me, y’all are horrible people…” As Bitty goes on and on volubly, his words are contradicted by his giant smile and he accepts all the hugs that everyone comes over to give him. He dries his hair and face off into Holster’s shirt, and Farmer offers to take a group photo in front of the sink.

In the photo, everyone’s clothes are varying degrees of soaked, and everyone’s grinning like a maniac. Bitty looks HAPPY with both Jack’s arms around him from behind, the Frogs leaning on each other and into Bitty, Holster and Ransom making ridiculous faces, and Shitty and Lardo watching Bitty and Jack with matching fond expressions.

Moments later, Farmer and Chowder bring the lumpy-but-delicious chocolate cake out from hiding as Jack and Shitty start the coffeepot. 

Bitty is close to tears. With a warm dry towel draped over his shoulders, his expression is wobbly and he makes the excuse of drying his hair some more so he can hide his face and wipe his eyes before he has the nerve to come out and give a watery smile to his wonderful, beautiful, silly friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this second chapter is dedicated to Tamora Pierce who said on FB that we have to keep making the things we love. It feeds us, it feeds others who love the same things we do, it fights off despair, and it's a thumb in the eye to those who WANT us to despair so they can control us better.  
> fuck. that. noise.
> 
> this chapter is also dedicated to my broken right hand. and the cast that protects it.  
> I wrote this note with my left hand ONLY. try it sometime. it's a little bit tiring. also edited the whole chapter with one hand.  
> See how much I love you?  
> :)
> 
> ps typo check welcomed!

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based in part on my only surprise birthday party. I was studying abroad the year I turned 21, which is the year you're legal to drink in the USA, but three years after you're legal to drink in the UK. My British (and Bahamian, and Irish) friends knew that 21 was meant to be a big deal for Americans, and decided to throw me a surprise party. Which I partially spoiled for myself because I am not a subtle person, but which was AMAZING and is still the benchmark for fun parties even now, more than 20 years later.
> 
> This story takes place in my headcanon that includes "Open The Bottle, Dex" and seems to be canon compliant through the updates for Year 3, comic 15.
> 
> come find my main blog at labelleizzy on tumblr and Dreamwidth, or my omgcp sideblog at makeshittyknightproud: I reblog fanart, fanfic, and meta.
> 
> One of our slogans in my household is, "Food is Love." I hope it's obvious Spouse and I share this sentiment with Bitty and the Polyfrogs.


End file.
